Chuck Klosterman's Prophetic Advice for Outed Anti-Gay Politician

After a career
of voting against gay-rights legislation, California state Sen. Roy
Ashburn admitted on Monday that he is gay. The confession came after
reports that he visited a gay nightclub prior to a drunk
driving arrest last week. The Republican senator was immediately accused of hypocrisy, though he claimed his votes merely reflected what his constituents wanted. Is there any other dignified way he can respond?

Culture critic Chuck Klosterman offers one. In an eerily prophetic passage in
his 2009 book Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman scripts a series of "best responses" to people in dire situations. For
the recently-outed gay social-conservative politician he offers this
prefabricated apology:

"I will concede that I am more confused
than the average person. I've spent my entire life denying who I truly
was. But my motive for that denial was political, even before I was a
politician. I always believed that I could serve the greater good by
advancing myself into a position of power, and--in order to make that
reality--the compromise I made was to attack the social mores that were
extension of everything I feared about myself. I felt extremely guilty
for doing this, and I felt as though I deserved to be punished. My
religious upbringing dictated retribution. So by publicly criticizing
the gay community, I felt like I was silently punishing myself. Now, I
was totally aware that this was hypocritical, and that hypocrisy
consumed me. It was all I ever thought about. It became so pervasive
within my consciousness that I found myself acting upong my own
suppressed desires. I became romantically involved with someone of my
own gender, completely aware that this could destroy me politically.
That was part of the atrraction. Sadly, I enjoyed feeling
self-destructive. When that relationship became more intense, I began
to accept that I was gay. And that's why I kept pushing for laws that
hurt the gay community. Political duplicity was the only way I could
confront my own personal demons. I deeply apologize for hurting other
people, but the only person I was trying to hurt was myself.